Artificial Recharge of Unconfined Aquifer

Abstract Groundwater plays a major role in augmenting water supply to meet the ever‐increasing demands for domestic, agricultural, and industrial usages. Increasing dependence of water supply on groundwater resources leads to more use of aquifers as a source of fresh water supply and subsurface reservoir for storing excess surface water. The advantage of unconfined aquifers over confined aquifers to serve as subsurface reservoir is that the storage of groundwater in large quantity is possible only in unconfined aquifer, which is because the storativity of the unconfined aquifer is linked to the porosity and not to the elastic properties of the water and solid matrix, as in case of the confined aquifer. Also, the vast surface area of the unconfined aquifer above the water table is available to receive the surface applied recharge, whereas in case of the confined aquifer, only a small open area exposed near to the ground surface or leaky portion of the aquifer boundary is available to receive the recharge. This article deals with artificial recharging of the unconfined aquifer and related problems.